Cerebral hemisphere

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major reference

Basic organizations of movement, such as reciprocal innervation, are organized at levels of the central nervous system lower than the
cerebral hemispheres—at both the spinal and the brainstem level. Examples of brainstem reflexes are turning of the eyes and head toward a light or sound. The same movements, of course, also can be organized consciously when one decides to turn the head and...

brain

The
cerebral hemispheres are separated by a deep groove, the longitudinal cerebral fissure. At the base of this fissure lies a thick bundle of nerve fibres, called the corpus callosum, which provides a communication link between the hemispheres. The left hemisphere controls the right half of the body, and vice versa, because of a crossing of the nerve fibres in the medulla or, less commonly, in...

...portion of the brain. It is involved with sensory integration, control of voluntary movement, and higher intellectual functions, such as speech and abstract thought. The outer layer of the duplicate
cerebral hemispheres is composed of a convoluted (wrinkled) outer layer of gray matter, called the cerebral cortex. Beneath the cerebral cortex is an inner core of white matter, which is composed of...

The neurons of the cerebral cortex constitute the highest level of control in the hierarchy of the nervous system. Consequently, the terms
higher cerebral functions and
higher cortical functions are used by neurologists and neuroscientists to refer to all conscious mental activity, such as thinking, remembering, and reasoning, and to complex volitional behaviour such...

corpus callosum

...regions of the left and right
cerebral hemispheres to communicate. The axons and dendrites of the neurons in the corpus callosum synapse with cortical neurons on symmetrically related points of the hemispheres. Thus, electrical stimulation of a point on one hemisphere usually gives rise to a response on a symmetrically related point on the other, by virtue of these callosal connections. The...

hemiplegia

...of a cerebral artery or to brain tumour. The corticospinal tracts extend from the lower spinal cord to the cerebral cortex. They decussate, or cross, in the brainstem; therefore, damage to the right
cerebral hemisphere results in paralysis of the left side of the body. Damage to the left hemisphere of a right-handed person may also result in aphasia.

human intelligence

One biological approach has centred upon types of intellectual performance as they relate to the regions of the brain from which they originate. In her research on the functions of the brain’s two hemispheres, the psychologist Jerre Levy and others found that the left hemisphere is superior in analytical tasks, such as are involved in the use of language, while the right hemisphere is superior...

reptiles

...and sense organs. When compared with mammals, reptiles have proportionately smaller brains. The most important difference between the brains of these two vertebrate groups lies in the size of the
cerebral hemispheres, the principal associative centres of the brain. These hemispheres make up the bulk of the brain in mammals and, when viewed from above, almost hide the rest of the brain. In...

speech processing

...generally believed that there are highly specialized “centres” within the speech area, each with its own particular function; but the existence of such a speech area in the dominant hemisphere of the brain (which for most people is the left hemisphere) seems to be well established. The posterior part of this area is involved more in the comprehension of speech and the...

work of Sperry

...research on animals and then on human epileptics whose brains had been “split”—
i.e., in whom the thick cable of nerves (the corpus callosum) connecting the right and left
cerebral hemispheres had been severed. His studies demonstrated that the left side of the brain is normally dominant for analytical and verbal tasks, while the right hemisphere assumes dominance in...

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